Certified birth certificates are a fairly recent invention, common only since the 1900s in the United States. Prior to that, births frequently went unrecorded or were written down by doctors, midwives, church officials, government bodies or family members. Historically speaking, the recording of the births of many prominent figures has taken many forms:

Cleopatra: born in 69 BC in Alexandria, Egypt, this queen and legendary beauty's birth was recorded by priests in hieroglyphic text.

Genghis Khan: born 1162 (estimated). Birth records were not kept at this time in Mongolia, where the legendary leader (born Temujin) formed the Mongol Empire, the largest continuous empire in history. Instead, his birth year is an educated guess based on the date of his death, August 18, 1227.

William Shakespeare: When the legendary playwright was born, dates of baptism were noted in church records. Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, and his birthday, while unconfirmed, is generally celebrated on April 23.

Abraham Lincoln: Since Lincoln was born in a log cabin before birth certificates were issued, the only existing record of his birth is an autobiographical sketch in which the 16th president of the United States lists February 12, 1809, as his birthday.

Mohatmas Ganhdi: Born into a middle-class family in British-occupied India on October 2, 1869, the peace activist's birth was recorded by his family and registered with the local British-run municipal office.

Paul McCartney: A member of the Beatles and successful solo artist, his birth (June 18, 1942) was recorded by the General Register's Office in London. An original, official copy of the birth certificate was issued to his parents at the time, which was later sold by McCartney's stepmother to a memorabilia collector. The collector refused McCartney's request in 1995 to give it to him, and the original copy has since exchanged hands at auction several times.

As seen from in the examples above, the process of recording and storing birth records has changed dramatically over the past 200 years, making it easier to obtain an official copy of a birth certificate. In the United States, hospitals and midwives are required by law to record and send birth information to local government record offices, which kept the information at the turn of the 20th century in handwritten or typed ledgers.

As technology evolved, so did birth records: photocopying made the reproduction of certificates easier in the 1960s, and the creation of computer microprocessors made it possible to record and conveniently store large amounts of birth data in a small space. Birth certificates could then be searched, retrieved and ordered in an open process either in person or through the mail--an inconvenient process that could take several weeks.

In 1987, VitalChek Network Inc., a ChoicePoint company introduced express ordering of birth certificates by telephone and fax with a credit card. Ten years later, VitalChek streamlined the ordering process even further with the added option of placing online orders through the Internet. Today, most state organizations offer remote ordering to people eager to get an official copy of their birth certificates.

Since the events of September 11, 2001, keeping birth records private and secure has been a top priority for VitalChek. To help ensure that no one can falsely obtain an official copy of someone else's birth certificate, VitalChek is constantly improving its security checks and streamlining its ordering process. To learn more about VitalChek and how to expedit a birth certificate copy, visit http://www.vitalchek.com.